Silk Road users wanted for research project

Silk Road may be gone and Silk Road v.2 yet to prove itself, but the site has become culturally significant enough to attract the attention of some serious academic researchers. And unlike the plethora of tabloid news pieces, their starting position is not always that the online black market is a den of evil inhabited by junkies and thieves with no redeeming features whatsoever.

Despite assurances of anonymity and the researchers’ ethical obligations to maintain privacy of participants, it can be difficult to find people willing to discuss their drug use. Many Silk Road users are (sometimes justifiably) paranoid about discussing their illegal activities. The NDRI has taken the extraordinary step of providing a means for willing participants to be interviewed over encrypted chat. There is no need to provide any identifying information.

The institute has no hidden agenda; harm minimisation is its only goal and sites like Silk Road raise unique questions for researchers. “There’s an assumption that people will use more drugs or come to more harm if drugs are more available,” says Research Fellow Dr Monica Barratt. “We think it’s more complex than this, and think the situation that Silk Road users can find themselves in, where many drugs are more available, provides an interesting experiment. What happens to people’s drug use in this situation?”

If you are reading this and you are a current or previous user of one of the online black markets, I urge you to assist the NDRI. It will certainly be more beneficial than trying to justify yourself to a tabloid journalist. These are the good guys.